Andor Recap: The Space Procedural That Will Emotionally Wreck You

Good morning! Everything is on fire. Institutions are rotting from the inside, power is hoarded by freaks, and most people are either burnt out or buying candles on TikTok trying to cope.

I don’t judge other people’s coping mechanisms, or I try not to when they’re not causing harm, so I hope you won’t judge mine: I’m recapping the first season of Andor, a Star Wars show that’s about why people change take risks.

💥 What is Andor, and why am I writing this?

Billed as a “Star Wars show for people who don’t like Star Wars,”  or “The Wire but Star Wars,” or “Diego Luna is in it,”  this show is about how revolutions happen. It gets how people break, how systems manipulate, and how hope—real, costly hope—gets built. Tony Gilroy, the show creator, listened to all 70000 hours of Mike Duncan’s monotone in Revolutions and said “what if we put this in space?” 

But what makes it compelling, what makes me say to people only slightly tongue in cheek, “I’m living until Andor comes back on,” and why organizers love it so much, is because ultimately, it’s a show about understanding people and their motivations. 

What actually makes someone take risks, fight back, or stand up for someone they don’t know? 

Why are you sending this to me, H?

1. I’m sad and I want to.

2. Andor is about:

• What it feels like to live under systems that don’t care about you.

• What makes people snap, conform, betray, or rebel.

• How power actually moves, how revolutions actually start, and what it means to be alive in a dying empire, wondering if anything you do still matters. Fun! 

It helps me name the things I see in movement spaces, at work, in politics, and in myself. If that sounds relevant to your life in Chicago in 2025, cool.

If not, hit archive. I still love you!

Quick Notes:

If you’re here for Chicago Politics but not space, send me an emoji in response, and I will make sure you get removed from the Andor-specific list.

I don’t know how to do content or spoiler warnings effectively with this show: it’s sad and full of political repression and a variety of traumas, and flagging some but not all feels off. Please read knowing that the show is sad (CW), and I will be describing what happens in some detail (spoilers).

I plan to recap every episode (there are 12, I make no promises about the timing) until the new season drops in April. Let’s get to the pilot!

Episode 1: Diego Luna disassociates in a junkyard

We open on a wet, neon-blasted planet that feels like a creepy Blade Runner CVS.

There is synth music playing.  If I were smarter about lighting or cinematography, I would have something to say about why it looks so sci fi, but I don’t. It’s kind of dark in there but in a cool way. In a space way. ANDOR. We might in space but we’re still goth…. And political…

Anyway. Cassian Andor is there at the Blade Runner strip club. He is looking for his sister. He is wearing a Space Coat. We know immediately that Cassian Andor is Good because the service workers and sex workers there are nice to him. He is not interested in Sex Work, thank you, but he IS interested in if the woman working knows his sister. She does not, and would rather talk to him, a normal person, than the company rent a cop jerks who are complaining at her from across the bar. 

Cassian Andor immediately admonishes her to help them because it’s company town and they could make trouble for her. I know him saying this is meant  as exposition and mood setting, but I think also serves as character establishment, establishing his turn to organizing. The bartender is like mmmk, thanks for the tip I already know random stranger.  Without much other intel, Cassian bails on the space brothel — but unfortunately, the rent-a-cops decide to flex on him, following him outside (in the moody SPACE RAIN) to be bored and fragile at him. They hassle him about his ID, parking, and if he “swam over,” clearly looking for him to pay them off. It’s a fun normal surveillance state dystopian moment, a combination of sci fi slang and very pointed it could happen here style comments like “Did you swim over?” until Cassian starts beating the hell out of one of the mall cops. 

ACTION! BLASTER NOISES! NOSE PUNCH! It’s very gratifying.

Until things escalate. Cassian accidentally kills one of the mall cops, leaving the other, as he realizes his situation, in a panic, begging Cassian to spare his life by saying that they’ll tell the authorities: “We hit too hard and you didn’t understand it.” Not so appealing. So after Cassian kills one cop on accident, he kills the other one on purpose. 

Now on the lam, wet-looking, and sweaty in a sad space hoodie., Cassian flees the scene. That said, it’s still Diego Luna, so he looks really cool while all of these things happen. 

Cassian’s home, Ferrix, which is the most trade union coded planet I’ve ever seen. He is back in bed, and woken from a weird dream interlude (one that continues throughout the episode) by B2EMO, the droid equivalent of the phone you dropped in the snow in 2019 that still turns on sometimes. He also has depression and a stutter, bless him. As the kids say, protect B2EMO at all costs.

B2EMO tells him that Maarva (his mom, played by Fiona Shaw!!) and Brasso (his best friend) were talking about how much he sucks, “ruining his health with friends of low reputation and character.”

Cassian’s mom is mad at him, AND she’s Fiona Shaw! Can you imagine?! Andor is ultimately a space procedural but it doesn’t mean there aren’t horror moments too. 

Throughout his day at home, Cassian lies to literally everyone who loves him, clearly hiding something, while looking like he hasn’t slept in three days. He leans on his friends for alibis (shoutout Brasso, who demands in his albi lie that Cassian apologizes to him).

Meanwhile, back on Blade Runner planet, Syril Karn—ambitious fascist-in-training—is  investigating the deaths of the space mall cops. His very tired looking boss tells him to cover the incident up. But Syril wants to make his mark. Syril Karn is the ultimate empire junior deputy: insecure, detail-obsessed, quietly spiraling. After his old, embittered boss tries to bury the incident for political reasons, Syril is aghast and decides to investigate. Alone. With extra piping on his uniform. 

On Ferrix, Cassian calls in a favor from Bix—an ex, probably, who still trusts him enough to set up a black market buyer from off-world. Wild. Bix’s boyfriend, Timm, sees her sneaking around with Hot Diego Luna, and panics— which is somewhat reasonable. But his panic means that he calls the cops, which is less reasonable. Let me just point again, if you missed it, his name: Timm. I think I just. Timm. That’s a Star Wars name if I’ve ever seen one. 

Back in Space Severance, Syril Karn yells at his staff, demanding they “simply request information” from an area outside of their jurisdiction. They ask if he’s aware that “they have their own way of doing things there.” He freaks out. They make these faces:

The manhunt begins.

Through this episode, we get flashbacks to Kenari, where a young Cassian lives among a group of kids in the jungle. No adults. No explanations. A mysterious Imperial ship crashes. They go to check it out. It’s weird. It feels like a queer youth group feral lost boys. But the gender split is even so it’s Yellowjackets. I’ve never quite been sure what to make of this plot line… at least at first.

🪖 Power Watch — or, What Does This Remind You Of?:

Pre-Mor Authority is a privatized security company with jurisdiction over Ferrix. They aren’t the Empire—but that might be by design. They might as well be. This is what subcontracted violence looks like. They’re obsessed with appearances, promotions, and performance metrics.

You cannot tell me this isn’t GEO Group in space, one of the biggest private prison and immigration detention contractors in the U.S., profiting off incarceration and abuse. here’s no way for me to see even a fictional space law privatized security force right now without thinking about GEO Group and everything happening in our already horrifying private prison system. I wish I had something more actionable or hopeful here.

You can read more here: https://theappeal.org/mahmoud-khalil-lasalle-detention-center-louisiana/ 

📜 Historical Parallel:

Lots going on here, especially with Ferrix, which we’ll come back to, a very Irish/IRA vibe. But in the pilot I want to talk about British colonial policing.

During the Mau Mau Rebellion in Kenya (1952–1960), British colonial authorities outsourced enforcement to locals and created dense surveillance networks to maintain power.

The Kikuyu population was brutalized in mass detention camps—often based on suspicion, not evidence, according to Caroline Elkins, Imperial Reckoning. 

Just like Pre-Mor, these forces didn’t need a reason to detain you. They just needed you to be legible: seen, categorized, and understood as a potential threat.

🧨 One Line That Lives in My Brain:

“It’s just that I’ve been trying to make myself more presentable.”

Syril Karn delivers this line with all the trembling energy of someone hoping his fascist stepdad will say he looks nice. It’s awkward. It’s sad. It’s weirdly compelling.

There are multiple plotlines and characters in Andor, each showing so many different faces and roles in the rebellion how much work and time and, people, and sacrifice it takes to overthrow an empire. 

But IMO, what makes Andor so remarkable is that it doesn’t just track the rebels. It gives serious narrative weight to the strivers, the loyalists, the middle managers, the bureaucrats—the people trying to succeed inside the rotting system, who even feel deep loyalty to it. The Empire is full of insecure functionaries obsessed with promotions and appearance, but it also has its own set of visionaries, and the show makes you care about them as people — even when they are trying to beat out any last shred of humanity within themselves.

—

Episode 2 is next, when we meet Mon Mothma, who most people feel normally about.

Until April 22nd, when season 2 airs, I will be writing one of these for every episode. 

Thank you for joining me on this journey. I hope this television show helps you hold it together the way it has helped me. 

+ H